The Book of Doom - By Barry Hutchison Page 0,74

There was the waterfall. And there, way off in the distance was Hades and the flickering lights of Eyedol.

Zac fell. Down towards the sludgy water. Down towards the blood-stained welcome sign. Down towards Hell itself.

He fell.

He smiled.

And he kept on falling.

E LANDED ON his feet and the ground rippled around him.

He had passed through the roof like a ghost and come to a stop in a cave-like room with lava flowing through gaps in the rocky floor. The wailing and the sobbing of the damned bounced like squash balls off the walls around him.

The worst of the wailing, though, seemed to be piped in through hidden speakers. There were only thirty or forty people in the room itself, and most of those were standing in small groups looking worried. Only two or three people were actually weeping, but the sound effects suggested thousands more of them were hiding round the corner.

There was demonic laughter too, and the crackling of deadly flames. Small log fires burned here and there around the cave, but the roar of the inferno was also coming from the speakers.

There was only one actual demon in the room, as far as Zac could tell. He wore gold hot pants and roller skates, and was bare from the waist up. The demon looked up from a clipboard and a flicker of recognition crossed his face. “Oi,” he said. “I know you. You’re the one what shot me.”

The demon trundled awkwardly over on his skates. “Thought you were the big man, waving that gun about,” he spat. “Thought you were the big I am. Not so tough now, are you? Not so tough n—”

Zac formed his left hand into the shape of a spearhead and jabbed it upward into the soft area just above the demon’s right armpit.

“Ooyah,” hissed the creature, and then half his face went slack, and half his body went limp, and all of him slumped to the ground in a whimpering heap.

Zac stepped over him and raced towards a door set into one of the rocky walls. He’d barely got his fingers on the handle when someone called out to him.

“Um... excuse me?”

He turned to find a middle-aged woman waving to him from one of the worried little groups. “We were just wondering... what should we do?” she asked. “It’s just that we’re all quite new to this and...” She ran out of steam then, and someone from another group took over.

“Should we just hang about here or what?” asked a man just a few years older than Zac. “Only no one’s really told us anything since I arrived and, well, between you and me, I’m getting a bit sick of it.”

There was murmured agreement from the rest of the damned. Zac sighed. He didn’t have time for this.

“Well, I don’t know,” he said. “I mean, are any of you murderers or anything?”

A few questioning glances were exchanged. Then, at the back of the room, a solitary man in a long dirty raincoat raised a hand.

“Right, well, you stay here, then,” Zac told him. The man tutted quietly, but sat down on a rock and did his best to make himself comfortable. “The rest of you do what you like,” Zac shrugged. “Try to get out if you want. If you can make it upriver there’s a nightclub. I’d imagine it’s more fun than here. Tell the owner Zac sent you.” He moved to open the door. “Oh, and tell him I said sorry about his boat.”

The door led out into the reception area, where the secretary was sitting at her desk, knitting furiously and gazing down at a double-page spread in Your Hellhound. She looked up as Zac entered and the clicking of her needles stopped.

“All right?” he said. He set the backpack down on the floor, unzipped it and began rummaging inside.

“Um...” said the demon. “Um...”

“Sorry about earlier,” he told her. “You know, shooting you in the face and stuff?”

“Um...”

“We were trying to be stealthy, that’s why I did it.” He took out a couple of small plastic guns and stuck them in his waistband, then he removed a much larger gun from the bag and set it on the floor. Next he removed the little sack of Argus eyes and put them in his pocket.

Finally, he took out the bomb. It was a simple thing. He’d bought it from Geneva Jones on his way to the toyshop. She’d agreed to give him a discount to make up for selling him out to